"bad" voting machine wants approval

The New York State Board of Elections unanimously rejected certification of the ExpressVote XL at their meeting on 1/28/21. 

Professor Rich DeMillo, Chair of the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy at Georgia Tech, said, “It is encouraging that the commissioners refused to certify the ExpressVoteXL, an all-in-one ballot marking device that poses extraordinary risks for the voters of New York.”  DeMillo is one of a group of over 50 experts, good government and disability rights groups who signed a coalition letter opposing certification of the voting machine.

(See the full coalition letter below.)

Despite their January vote, at the March 15th New York State Board of Elections meeting, their staff reports “We continue our conversations with ES&S ... They are looking to address the discrepancies that were enumerated during the testing of the ExpressVote XL." (See video at 20:20). 

Based on our latest conversations with the State Board of Elections, we expect ES&S to reapply for NY certification of the ExpressVote XL around the beginning of 2022. 

Once certified, the ExpressVote XL will likely be purchased promptly for use in all of New York City. NYC already requested to use the ExpressVote XL in 2019. That means NY City and other counties could be voting on  these touchscreen barcode voting machines within a year. This is the window to prevent certification. Please help prevent this.

Our Sister project SMART Legislation is working to prevent certification of all hybrid voting machines in New York. Join our meetups Fridays at 12pm to learn how you can help.

To find out more about the dangers of hybrid voting machines:

• Read our 1-page fact sheet
• Watch our video investigation 

• New York State Election Commissioners
• New York State Board of Elections Executive Directors
• New York State Senate and Assembly Members
• New York Governor, The Honorable Andrew Cuomo

URGENT: REJECT CERTIFICATION OF THE EXPRESSVOTE XL VOTING MACHINE

The people of New York State have a right to have their votes counted as cast, and the right to have confidence in their election process. Those rights face immediate and present danger.

The New York State Board of Elections may certify a voting machine made by ES&S called the ExpressVote XL very soon.

The ExpressVote XL is a dangerously insecure, glitchy, over-priced voting system that many good government groups, disability advocates and security experts  oppose.

"Common Cause/NY is alarmed to see the New York State Board of Elections move in a direction that would undermine the security of our elections.”

Emails obtained via public records requests show that even the New York State Board of Elections is concerned about design flaws in the system. 

Emails also reveal that, in May of 2019, the New York State Board of Elections halted certification of the ExpressVote XL. They were concerned that the machine was not compatible with state regulations. After the certification process was halted, the ES&S legal team threatened to sue the Board stating, “ES&S has authorized our firm to take any and all legal action necessary to preserve their rights...as your… actions have put ES&S in a position to lose… many business opportunities to sell the XL system to New York State customers.”

Despite (or perhaps because of) what most would view as an inappropriate threat, the Board has proceeded with the certification process and certification of the system could be imminent. 

OUR ASKS: 

1. Reject certification of the ExpressVote XL.  
2. Allow a 60 day public comment period for members of the public to submit written comments. 

WHY REJECT CERTIFICATION OF THE EXPRESSVOTE XL? 

Voters and Candidates Have Lost Confidence in the ExpressVote XL

• In 2019, The ExpressVote XL miscounted tens of thousands of votes in Northampton, Pennsylvania, and picked the wrong winner.
• Subsequently, “Pennsylvania’s Northampton County Election Commission Board announced a unanimous and bipartisan vote of no confidence in the ExpressVote XL.” “We believe the problems the machines exhibited this year will make it virtually impossible to restore voters’ confidence.” 
• “There have been widespread reports of machine failure and inaccurate vote counts.” ( 1.)

Many Disability Advocates and Good Government Groups Oppose The ExpressVote XL

• Common Cause/NY has written a white paper called “The ExpressVote XL: Bad for New York’s Elections,” saying the organization “vehemently opposes the certification of the ExpressVote XL.”
• Many disability rights advocates in NY do not support its use. 
• Voters with disabilities had trouble using it, according to Pennsylvania certification records. “None of the participants were able to verify their paper ballot and ... every participant had at least one problem.” (2)

Security Experts Strongly Oppose the ExpressVote XL 

• The ExpressVote XL counts votes with barcodes. Barcodes are such a severe security risk that Colorado has banned their use in voting.
• The ExpressVote XL is a touchscreen. Touchscreen systems have many security risks. New York has never approved them. When they go out of calibration, they switch votes. Other states bought touch screen voting machines after the Help America Vote Act (HAVA, 2002). Many of those states have now spent millions of dollars replacing them with hand-marked paper ballots. Why is New York going backwards? 

(See John Oliver at 7:45 "Over the years the touch screen can slip out of place, and register votes incorrectly.")

• ExpressVote XL has multiple security-design flaws. Professor Andrew Appel of Princeton called the design a “disaster,” because the voting machine feeds the ballot under the printhead after the voter has cast the ballot. If the machine is hacked, it can change votes. 

Current Security Threats Combined with ES&S Sloppy Practices are a Catastrophic Combination

• A massive security breach that compromised SolarWinds software allowed hackers to penetrate hundreds of top level government agencies and private businesses, including the Department of Homeland Security. Reportedly, the SolarWinds server could be accessed using the password “solarwinds123”. So this type of hack can be relatively easy.
• Customers installed the malware via official SolarWinds software updates. Officials frequently say that voting machines cannot be hacked because they are not connected to the internet. But this breach demonstrates that voting machines could be compromised through official updates; direct internet connectivity is not necessary. 
• During the August 2020 Texas certification of ES&S voting systems, researchers found that the process designed to alert officials if the software was tampered with was not working. (3) This indicates that many ES&S systems are not set up to catch malware. (7.2 Bug in Hash Verification Script)
• Security experts say, universal-use ballot-marking devices, like the ExpressVote XL, could give an election to the wrong candidate without being detected. This is because the computer-generated ballot-summary cards are not a trustworthy record of voter intent. (Full paper, free version here.)

The ExpressVote XL may cause long lines at the polls, and is expensive.

• Touchscreen systems can cause long lines at the polls. “Voters require triple the time on average to navigate ES&S ballot-marking machines compared to filling out hand-marked ballots and running them through scanners,” (4) Studies show that long lines impact communities of color more severely.
• Comparison studies indicate that using a barcode ballot-marking system for all voters can double or triple costs.

The New York City Board of Elections has already requested permission to buy this system, raising the frightening spectre that if the machine is certified, as many as 4.5 million voters could be using it within a year. This is a nightmare scenario that we must prevent. 

The New York State Board of Elections must stop certification of this dangerous voting machine immediately. 

For the last ten years, with the exception of one village, the majority of New York voters have voted with hand-marked paper ballots with the option to use a non-tabulating ballot-marking device if needed. This system, combined with robust audits, provides “the gold standard” for protecting elections from error and hacking. 

We must continue to follow expert guidance in our elections and not succumb to vendor pressure to buy expensive systems that do not serve the public. It is imperative that we protect our right to secure, accurate, private, and accessible elections. 

We urge you to stop certification of the ExpressVote XL today. 

Sincerely, 

Citizens for Voting Integrity New York

CCoHOPE Indivisible

SMART Elections

More information is available on the SMART Elections website. 

Coalition Signatures

Experts: 

Dr. David A. Bader, Director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology

Jan BenDor, Statewide Coordinator, Michigan Election Reform Alliance

Dr. Duncan Buell, NCR Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina

Dr. Richard DeMillo, Chair, School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, Georgia Tech

Emily Levy, Founder and Director, Scrutineers.org

Dr. Virginia Martin, Former election commissioner, Columbia County, NY

Karen McKim - Coordinator, Wisconsin Election Integrity

Susan Pynchon, Founder & Executive Director Florida Fair Elections Coalition

Dr. Stephanie F. Singer, Research Assistant Professor, Portland State University; Former Chair, Philadelphia County Board of Elections

Daniel H. Wolf, Esq., CEO, Founder Democracy Counts!

*Affiliation is for identification purposes only and does not signify organizational endorsement.

Groups: 

AIM Independent Living Center

Alliance for Democracy

American Council of the Blind of New York

AUDIT Elections USA

Bethlehem Morning Voice Huddle

Bronx Green Party

Citizens’ Audit Broward

Clean Count Cook County

Concerned Citizens For Change

Concerned Families of Westchester

Consumers Health Freedom Coalition

Democracy Counts!, Inc

Downtown Nasty Women Social Group

Dutchess County Progressive Action Alliance (DCPAA)

East End Action Network (EEAN)

Florida Fair Elections Coalition

Indivisible Scarsdale 

IndivisibleWeStand UWS

Jamestown Justice Coalition 

Los Angeles County Voters Action Coalition

Markers For Democracy

Michigan Election Reform Alliance

Movement for a People's Party

National Voting Rights Task Force

New York Association on Independent Living

New York Democratic Lawyers Council

New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN)

NYPAN Greene

NYPAN SFL - Southern Finger Lakes

NYCD16-Indivisible

Progressive Democrats of America

Protect Our Vote Philly

Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter 

Scrutineers.org

Team Min

The Wednesday Group

Tompkins County Progressives

Ulster Activists (U-ACT)

ValidatetheVoteUSA.org

Westchester for Change

Wisconsin Election Integrity

Footnotes:

 1. “As many as 30% of Northampton County’s ExpressVote XL voting machines had flawed touch screens that prevented voters from selecting candidates listed on the edge of the ballot. At the same time, machines failed to electronically count any votes for some candidates in cross-filed races.” - The Morning call 12/19/19

2. Pennsylvania 2018 Department of State certification report on ES&S voting systems, including the ExpressVote XL. 

3. An examination of the Election Systems & Software (ES&S) EVS 6.1.1.0 voting system was conducted at the Texas Secretary of State Elections Division offices on August 21, 2020. It included an examination of the ExpressVote XL.

4. According to a CBS News report.